Failure To Connect
by KittyMarks
Summary: Erasure, its a horrible word. To cease to exist, to become nothing, it is Akiras greatest fear. When her best friend is killed and thrust into the Reapers Game, Akira is forced to fight to bring him back, even if it means facing Erasure herself.


**A/N: **I adore the game 'World Ends With You' and I've read so many awesome fanfictions about it that I've decided to give it a go myself. I confess that I love Oc's, I just love creating my own character and let them run wild in an anime/game-verse and also seeing other peoples creations. I know that a lot of you readers are going to go running for the hills as soon as you see this but if you think that an OC in a main role may be tolerable than please read and review. Also to clear up any confusion Akira _will_ be somewhat caught up in the Reapers Game but she will **not** participate, she will **not** take over for one of the Players and she will **not** end up some all powerful, Composery-thing.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own 'World Ends With You'. If I did JoshXNeku would be solid cannon! Hehehe. *_Inner perv showing_*

**Warning: **Death (Erasure), Cussing, some blood and gore.

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_**Failure To Connect.**_

_**Chapter One.**_

_**By KittyMarks.**_

It was raining outside and the persistant -drip drip drip- of the rain on the window-sil was driving Akira insane. She tapped her chipped nails against the countertop as she slowly drank her cooling coffee and watched the water run down the glass. Outside people were running to and fro, huddled under umbrellas or running with newspapers over their heads, they looked blurred through the grainy surface of the kitchen window and Akira frowned and squinted her dark green eyes to see better. It was seven in the morning and most people her age were getting out to go to school. A smirk twisted Akiras pale lips and she abandoned her tepid coffee and threw the dregs into the sink below the window.

"It's Monday." she noted absently as she glanced at the calender and running a thin hand through her short brown locks. A yellow post-it was stuck to the small fridge to the left of the window. Akira read over it again and sighed. _'Hey Aki-chan. I'll be back late tonight, don't wait up. - Taro.' _

Taro was her older brother, he often stayed out until the early morning hours. Akira never asked what he got up to, she didn't have to, it didn't take a genius to know that her older borther was going out everynight getting drunk, screwing his 'friends' and probably doing drugs.. He was loud, cheerful and as annoying as hell and had one of the quickest tempers Akira had ever know, he was born to party and have fun and be irresponsible but he never knew when to stop, never understood when enough was enough. More and more often lately Akira felt like she was the older person in the house. Ever since their parents died, the siblings had been living in a small apartment just inside Shibuya, the rent was cheap and it was in a decent enough neignourhood.

Akira yawned and stretched her mouth wide, her dry lips cracked a little and she winced and ran her tongue over them, tasting the metalic tang of blood that had welled in the tiny cuts. The kitchen was half in darkness and as she exited the room, Akira banged off the last of the switches, leaving the room in total darkness. She ambled back over to her bedroom and ran a critical eye over the chaos that was her room. Clothes were strewn across the floor and her vanity table was covered in makeup products she barely used, her unmade bad was littered with sweet wrappers and her stereo was buried under her unused school bag.

Taro was her legal guardian and he sure as hell didn't care whether she went to school or not, when the teachers sent notes home he'd just sign them with a flippant grin and give a halfhearted attempt to guilt her into going in for a day or two. Sometimes it worked and she'd get up and go to school for a few days, she'd listen to the teachers harp on about her terrible attendance and hear the other student whisper scornfully about her among themselves. Akira didn't give two shits what they thought, it was her life and she had better things to do. After riffling through her closet, Akira emerged wearing boys baggy jeans that disguised the sight curve of her hips, a black tanktop and a fitted leather jacket. With her short hair and flat chest she looked vaguely like a boy. She pulled on an old pair of boots and grabbed a battered packet of ciggarettes from her vanity table.

.

"Fuck, it's cold." she muttered as she pulled open her bedroom window and an icy breeze swirled around her thin form. She crouched down carefully on the window-sil, gripped the edges with both hands and slowly lowered the rest of her body down so that she was dangling from her fingertips, then with a grunt she let go and fell the last few feet onto the ground. Akira thanked God that their apartment was only on the second floor. If it was any higher she'd have to go down the stairs and risk being caught by the landlady. The landlady was a real busybody, she always had to have a say about everybody and everything and never stopped commenting on how a young girl like Akira should be getting a education instead of wasting her life away. Wasting her life. Akira snorted and rolled her eyes at the sheer idiocy of the landlady. She was going to live her life the ways she wanted, with no regrets and no worrys, that way, when it came to death she could accept it with a smile on her face and hopefully bypass the horrific intance of getting a second chance.

Second chances weren't all they were chalked up to be, they had to be earned with blood, sweat and tears and if you failed what awaited was a fate worse than death. Erasure. Akira didn't want to go to school when she could go to Shibuya and feel the thrum of the city in her blood as she walked through the streets, when she could watch and observe people living their lives, experiancing and learning. Sure she could do that in school, which was why she attended occasionally but she couldn't stay in the shadows. To observe in school she had to participate and talk with other students, that was hard because she didn't have many friends and only a few aquaintances due to never being in.

Akira rubbed her hands together to ward off the cold and pulled up her hood so her hair didn't get wet. She had a real crappy imune system and things that would give a normal person a bad cough made her stay in bed for a week, wracked with a fever or something similar. Akira couldn't afford to be sick this week, maybe next week because _'it' _was rarely held two weeks in a row. There hadn't been one for three whole weeks so she wasn't sure but hopefully there would only be one Game this time. The last time two Games were held in a row Akira had ended up skipping two months worth of school because of exhaustion and the large influx of Noise that stopped her from going out her front door, or window as the case may be.

Allow me to explain before I write anymore about Akira, her life and how she was dragged into the hell we all know as the 'Reapers Game'. You see, ever since she was born Akira had been able to see many things that normal people didn't. She could see the horrible sigils that followed people around and bred negitivity called 'Noise', she could see the music notes that flowed through everyone and everything like the lifeblood of Shibuya, she could see people -players- who were thought to be dead running around fighting the Noise, she could see the 'Reapers' and knew how they watched over the players and tried their hardest to 'Erase' them from existance. Earlier when she remarked that she didn't want a 'second chance' she was refering to spending a week in the Game. To Akira, being in the game and facing the Reapers was her biggest fear. Also being found out was high up on the fear list, if _they_ realsied she could see everything then she would definatly be Erased.

Because of this she wore various disguises when she left the house, this week, for example she was under the guise of a boy named Kyo. When she went to school she wore a long blonde wig she gotten from Lapin Angelique and dark make up with brown coloured contact lenses, the only people to ever see her without a disguise were her brother and her friend, Beat. Her and Beat would regularly skip school together, theirs was a friendship of convieniance and Akira barely ever saw him so she didn't bother to wear a disguise. Right now she was on her way to meet him. There was a small cafe on Cat Street that was nearly always abandoned so Akira usually ordered a coffee and waited at a table for Beat to wake up and make his way across Shibuya. Akira smiled in relief when she saw the open sign was flipped over on the window. The cafe had the weirdest times and if she didn't know any better Akira would say the owner only opened it when he was bored and wanted something to do.

She stepped inside and shrugged of her coat, a tall dark haired man, wearing rectangular shades was standing behind the counter, a cup of coffee and a newspaper rested on front of him. Akira cleared her throat and he glanced up with a small smile. "The usual?" he asked, raising an eyebrow and Akira nodded. Whenever she came here she ordered what ever had the highest amount of caffiene to keep her awake, she didn't know what it was called but it tasted okay, even if the prices where insane. A few minutes later, she had her coffee and was seated next to the window and the furthest away from the counter. The owner, Mr Hanekoma, gave her the creeps, no matter what disguise she wore he always saw right through it and when she was around him she always ended up giving away more information than she was comfortable with. For instance, he knew her real name, the fact that she wore disguises and that she was an insomniac with few friends he knew about her parents and the fact that she regularly skipped school. That was far more than even Beat knew and it pissed Akira off.

The brunette scowled and stared moodily out the window, looking for signs of Player activity. While the first mission was always to get a partner and make your way to the 104 building, Players were dropped off in various sectors of Shibuya, it was pot luck that some of them got dropped at the statue of Hachiko or the Scramble Crossing and only had to spent a few minutes aquiring a partner and walking the few meters to 104. After a few minutes of staring it was evident that there was no game on this week, even if there was alot of Noise. Noise were like poltergeist, they liked to knock things over and make people depressed no matter what was going on, Games just allowed them to attack freely but they were always there. Right now around three lesser Noise were pressing up against the window and Akira could feel the startings of a pounding headache. Noise had that affect on people, they gave off a bad vibe that induced headaches, crankiness, fainting and sickness. She gave a small sigh and rooted around in her jacket for the pack of cigarettes, when she finally slid them from her pocket and lit up a single, slightly crumpled cigarette Mr Hanekoma was staring disaprovingly at her.

"Ya know, those things are really bad for your health" he remarked and Akira shrugged. "I don't really care, they get rid of the headaches." she said and he raised an eyebrow "Do they now?". Akira cursed mentally and looked back out the window at the Noise, they had floated away from the glass and where 'haunting' a young couple in the street who looked unhappy. Soon the couple got in a huge argument and stormed off in different directions, two of the Noise tagging along like parasites, Akira ground her teeth and her fingers clenched around her cup of coffee and the cigarette burned out as she glared at the lone remaining Noise, it wandered around the street absently before pushing back up against the window. Mr Hanekoma had a thoughtful look on his face as he also looked out the window. "That your friend?" he asked and Akira blinked as Beat ran towards the cafe, his sneakers stamped against the pavement and he had an angry look on his face. The small noise immediatly detatched itself from the window and hovered over Beats head. Akiras face contorted angrily as she watched Beats mood get worse. What she hated more than anything was having Noise possess people she knew and not being able to help.

With a snarl Beat practicaly ripped the cafe door off its hinges as he stomped inside, Akira winced as the door hinges squeaked loudly and groaned as the blonde boy slammed the door shut again. He made his way over to Akiras table and sat down with a lound agitated sigh. Mr Hanekoma narrowed his eyes at the tall boy who's sneakers had tracked mud all over the cafe floor, one look at Beats seething face told him now was not the time to interupt with dirty floors. "Trouble with your folks again?" Akira murmered as she swirled her coffee idily around in the cup, if possible her friends expression darkened and he rested his head against the cool surface of the tabletop. "They jus' wont leave me alone yo!" he muttered, clenching and unclenching his fists. Akira nodded and sighed, wheras her brother couldn't care less what she did Beats situation was the exact oposite, his parents wanted him to achieve things he couldn't and do things that he couldn't, they expected a lot from him and it drove him crazy. He had a little sister and apparently she tried to help him but it just made things worse, Beat hated being pitied by his younger sibling.

"You gonna order something?" Akira asked him, swallowing the last of her coffee, the Noise floated away from the window and slowly drifted in the direction of the Underpass, Akira relaxed her fingers around her cup in relief and looked questioningly at Beat. The blonde raised his head a little of the tabletop, looked over at Mr. Hanekoma and then exhaled loudly. "Yeah, you do muffins right?" he asked and the owner nodded "Then I'll have a plate a' those yo!" Beat said as he sat fully up in his seat, he was still angry and he'd probably take it out on the muffins. Most friends would have consoled him or encouraged him but Akira wasn't most friends, she didn't know what to do in situations like this, didn't know quite what to say or how to say it. Anything she could have said would have come out as either pitying or patronising and Beat wouldn't like that so Akira kept her mouth shut as Beat bit savagely into a muffin, complaining loudly about the price. In the end he ate around four of them before leaning back on the chair so that only two legs touched the ground. "I wanna head down to Udagawa, Wild Boar got some new boards in yesterday, an' I wanna check 'em out."

"Wild Boar?" Akira gave a pained groan and drooped her head into her hands, there was one brand that she never, ever wore, even when in disguise and that was Wild Boar. She could never bring herself to pull on the overalls, baggy sweatshirts or ass-hanger jeans. Beat however, loved the brand and Akira admitted, it went well with his tall frame but she had yet to see one other person wear Wild Boar successfully, even the junkie who ran the store looked odd wearing the brand. Beat just grinned and rocked the chair forward so that the front legs hit the floor with a sharp -twap- "Come on! Les' bounce!" he said, looking much happier than he had been upon entering Wildcat, it must have been the muffins, Akira mused as she tiredly stood up and walked out after him, at least Wild Boar had decent pins so maybe the trip wouldn't be a total loss. She was soo taking him to Cadoi City to look up dresses and underwear next, Akira smirked a little at the thought of Beat blushing wildly, being stranded among womens lingerie as the blonde continues on, oblivious to his friends scheming. Akira nodded cautiously to Mr Hanekoma as she walked out the door and jogged a little to catch up with Beat who was already at Miyashita park, ignoring the fact that Akira was several inches shorter than him and did not have a board. Oh yes, they were definatly going to Cadoi City after this!

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I know, I know, it's terrible! Please review, even if its just to say it sucks or whatever, I'd like to know what people think of my fic and whether or not I should continue.

Thanks!!

xxx


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